Santorum steps in it on unemployment

By ALEXANDER BURNS

03/19/2012 05:48 PM EDT

The Romney campaign is howling with delight over a Rick Santorum gaffe in Illinois this afternoon, as the Pennsylvania senator — already viewed as a candidate who may be more of a culture warrior than a job creator — said the following, via Juana Summers:

We need a candidate who's going to be a fighter for freedom. Who's going to get up and make that the central theme in this race because it is the central theme in this race. I don't care what the unemployment rate's going to be. Doesn't matter to me. My campaign doesn't hinge on unemployment rates and growth rates. It's something more foundational that's going on. We have one nominee who says he wants to run the economy. What kind of conservative says that the president runs the economy? What conservative says I'm the guy, because of my economic experience, that can create jobs? I don't know. We conservatives generally think that government doesn't create jobs. That what government does is create an atmosphere for jobs to be created in the private sector.

Santorum tried to clean up the comment a bit on the rope line, saying this:

Of course I care about the unemployment rate, I want the unemployment rate to go down, but I'm saying my candidacy doesn't hinge on whether the unemployment rate goes up and down, our candidacy's about something that transcends that. It's about freedom. It's not about, you know, Gov. Romney's idea that he's going to fix the economy, which is something that of course we as Republicans don't believe that presidents fix the economy. We believe that we try to do things to create an atmosphere for the economy to fix itself.

The moment is similar to Romney's "I like being able to fire people" gaffe from January: What the candidate was trying to say was fairly benign but the literal words that came out of his mouth reinforce an unflattering perception that's already very much in circulation.